12-19-2010, 10:31 AM
This may not be the answer anyone is looking for, but this subject has been debated over and over here and on other forums. The real point of copyright protection is to keep someone from making a profit from your efforts without compensation or permission, or at the least, using you material without due credit or recognition. This is not an official or legal interpretation, just mine. Stealing something is basically claiming something is yours when it is not. If it's for sale and you take it without paying for it such as a song, then that's stealing and it's wrong. If you listen to that same song on the radio, or on someone else's player, that's not stealing. The basic idea here is that anyone posting photos should either own them or have permission to use them. If not, and there are no obvious restrictions for their use, then they need to either link to those pictures or give credit to those that originated them. Even then, the line is blurry and what you can use without permission. How many people make a copy of a recipe or an article they find in a magazine? Should they get permission first? Probably not even though it is copyrighted property, but if they make 1000 copies and then sell them, or use the recipe in their own cookbook that is for sale, then that's not right.
If we feel something isn't correct, we'll tell you and ask you to delete it, or we'll do it for you. If someone comes to us and tells us that there is one of their pictures here that shouldn't be, we will take it off immediately. Recording companies and movie studios have deep pockets and they are constantly getting violated, and so they go after people with vigor. Suing is their first option. Photographers, casual or professional aren't as well equipped, and to sue would be their last option, but their work still deserves protection. We have occasionally deleted pictures for this reason, but that rarely occurs. One thing that we don't like to see, is in answer to the original question, we don't want to have someone post a picture here and then use the "image" tag to have it show up in a thread on another forum. They don't like that either since it just takes up unneeded bandwidth.
If there are any doubts, just ask us or check the source of the photo, but so far, everyone here has been doing a great job in this respect so I see no need for concern.
If we feel something isn't correct, we'll tell you and ask you to delete it, or we'll do it for you. If someone comes to us and tells us that there is one of their pictures here that shouldn't be, we will take it off immediately. Recording companies and movie studios have deep pockets and they are constantly getting violated, and so they go after people with vigor. Suing is their first option. Photographers, casual or professional aren't as well equipped, and to sue would be their last option, but their work still deserves protection. We have occasionally deleted pictures for this reason, but that rarely occurs. One thing that we don't like to see, is in answer to the original question, we don't want to have someone post a picture here and then use the "image" tag to have it show up in a thread on another forum. They don't like that either since it just takes up unneeded bandwidth.
If there are any doubts, just ask us or check the source of the photo, but so far, everyone here has been doing a great job in this respect so I see no need for concern.
Don (ezdays) Day
Board administrator and
founder of the CANYON STATE RAILROAD
Board administrator and
founder of the CANYON STATE RAILROAD